Nnamabia steals his mother’s jewelry, is discovered, later implicated in campus cult violence, arrested, suffers brutal treatment in Cell One, and is eventually released with injuries. Nkem discovers that her husband Obiora has a girlfriend living in their Lagos home, confronts her housegirl Amaechi about it, confirms via a phone call that no other people are in the Nigerian house, and tells Obiora she wants to move back to Lagos at the end of the school year. Chika, a Lagos medical student, hides in an abandoned store in Kano with a Hausa woman during violent riots; her sister Nnedi disappears, she is injured, witnesses burned bodies, and eventually leaves with the woman's help. The retired professor encounters Ikenna Okoro, a sociology professor presumed dead since the 1967 war, who reveals he survived, escaped to Sweden via Red Cross, and has recently returned before retiring. The narrator learns of Ikenna’s wartime activism, his role in European Biafran fundraising, and his personal losses, including the death of his wife three years prior. The chapter also details the narrator’s ongoing pension struggles, his late wife Ebere’s memory, his daughter Nkiru’s life in America, current university decay, and issues like fake drugs. Kamara, a Nigerian immigrant, starts working as nanny for Neil and his partner Tracy, experiencing cultural tension, meeting Tracy in person, and reflecting on her strained marriage to Tobechi and ongoing immigration challenges. Ujunwa Ogundu attends the African Writers Workshop at the Jumping Monkey Hill resort in Cape Town, meeting organizer Edward Campbell and his wife Isabel, and joining a pan‑African cohort of writers. The workshop exposes Edward’s lecherous remarks toward her and spurs heated debates on literature, sexuality and African identity. In a parallel storyline, Ujunwa’s fictional character Chioma pursues a job at Merchant Trust Bank, works for an Ikoyi alhaji, and confronts family and gender tensions. The narrator wins the US visa lottery, stays briefly with a distant uncle in Maine, is sexually assaulted, then moves to a small Connecticut town, works as a waitress for manager Juan, sends remittances home, begins a fraught relationship with a senior university student, learns of her father’s death in Lagos, and grapples with cultural isolation. The narrator, a mother of a four‑year‑old son Ugonna, waits in the long line outside the American embassy in Lagos to apply for asylum after her son has been killed and buried. She recounts her husband’s perilous journalism against General Abacha’s regime, his arrest, torture, escape to Benin and then the United States, and his pending asylum claim. The embassy scene is marked by soldiers flogging civilians, men assaulting her, and the chaotic, overheated crowd. In the visa interview she tells the officer that her son was killed by government agents but cannot produce proof, leaving her asylum request uncertain. Ukamaka meets a Nigerian neighbor, Chinedu, who prays with her after hearing about the Lagos‑Abuja plane crash; she learns her ex‑boyfriend Udenna survived; Chinedu reveals his visa expired three years ago and he faces imminent deportation; their relationship becomes a mix of religious debate, daily meals, and mutual support, culminating in attending church together while Ukamaka grapples with faith and the uncertainties of both their futures. Chinaza arrives in New York for an arranged marriage, moves into a cramped Flatbush flat with her husband Dave Bell (formerly Ofodile Emeka Udenwa), experiences cultural shock, discovers his snoring, name change, and undocumented prior marriage; she navigates daily life, meets neighbors Shirley and Nia, and learns of her husband’s immigration troubles, deepening her sense of isolation. The narrator returns to Nigeria after eighteen years, revisits Grandmama’s yard, and relives the summer when her brother Nonso died after being coaxed onto an avocado tree under a snake legend. The chapter reveals the family’s conflicted reactions—Grandmama’s fury, the mother’s call to fly Nonso’s body, the father’s distant presence, and the lingering guilt and resentment that shape the narrator’s present encounter with cousin Dozie. We meet Nwamgba, a headstrong historian, and learn her tumultuous marriage to Obierika, repeated miscarriages, the birth of her son Anikwenwa (later baptized Michael), his upbringing under missionary influence, his marriage to Mgbeke (Agnes), and the birth of their children Peter and Grace, whose later scholarly work continues Nwamgba’s lineage.